The Definite Object

by Jeffery Farnol

  “Don’t be ‘arsh, Joe, don’t be ‘arsh! Cake comes soft t’ me pore old teef.”

  “An’ mind this again—if there should be any jam about, no stickin’ ye wicked old fingers into it an’ lickin’ ‘em behind my back.”

  “You lemme an’ the jam alone, Joe; it’s a free country, ain’t it?—very well, then!”

  “Free country be blowed! You mind what I say, you venerable old bag of iniquity, you!”

  “‘Niquity yerself!” snarled the Old Un, and snapping bony finger and thumb under Joe’s massive chin, turned and went on up the stairs, his smart straw hat cocked at a defiant angle, his brilliant shoes creaking loudly at every step.

  “Oh, Gorramighty!” he panted, halting suddenly on the fifth landing to get his breath, “these perishin’ stairs ‘as ketched my wind, Joe; it’s worse ‘n th’ treadmill! Is there many more of ‘em?”

  “Only six flights!” nodded Joe grimly.

  “Six!” wailed the Old Un. “Lord—it’ll be the death o’ me!”

  “Well, it’s about time you was dead,” nodded Joe.

  “Dead ye’self!” snarled the old man. “I’m a better figger of a man than ever you was—”

  “An’ you would come,” continued Joe serenely, as he deftly resettled the old fellow’s sporty bow-tie. “You fair plagued me to bring ye along, didn’t ye, old packet o’ vindictiveness?”

  “Well, an’ here I am, Joe, an’ here I mean t’ stay—no more climbin’ fer me; I’m tired, me lad, tired!” Saying which, the Old Un spread his handkerchief on a convenient stair and proceeded to seat himself thereon with due regard for his immaculately creased trousers.

  “Well,” growled Joe, “of all the perverse old raspers that ever I did see—”

  “That’s enough, Joe, that’s enough!” exclaimed the Old Un, fanning himself with his rakish hat. “Jest bend down and flick the dust off me shoes with your wipe, like a good lad, will ye? That’s the worst o’ these ‘ere patent leathers; they looks well, but they sure ketches th’ dust, Joe, they ketches the dust oncommon bad. So jest give ‘em a flick over—me pore old back’s too stiff t’ let me reach ‘em, what wi’ me rheumatiz an’ a floatin’ kidney or so—”

  “Kidneys!” snarled Joe, drawing out a large bandanna handkerchief and polishing the old man’s natty shoes until they shone resplendent. “What’s the matter with ye blessed kidneys now?”

  “Don’t I tell ye—they floats, Joe, they floats!”

  “Float!” growled Joe. “Float—where to?”

  “‘Ere, there, an’ everywhere, Joe, I can feel ‘em! They’re always a-gettin’ theirselves all mixed up any’ow. Oh, it’s an ‘orrible complaint to ‘ave kidneys like mine as gets theirselves lost.”

  “Wish they’d lose you along with ‘em!” growled Joe, shaking the dust from his handkerchief.

  “Joe,” said the old man, putting on his hat and blinking up at him beneath its jaunty brim, “Joe, sometimes I fair despise ye!”

  “Well, despise away,” nodded Joe, “only get up—stand up on them doddering old pins o’ yourn.”

  “Not me!” declared the Old Un, “I ain’t goin’ to climb no more o’ these perishin’ stairs—no, not for you nor nobody. ‘Ere I am, me lad, an’ ‘ere I sits till you give me a piggy-back up to the top—me bein’ a pore old cove with rheumatiz. I demands it—”

  “You’ll what?” growled Joe, hard-breathing and indignant.

  “Demand it, Joe—a pore old feller wi’ kidneys—an’ every other ailment as flesh is hair to—a piggy-back, Joe—a piggy-back!”

  Without another word Joe stooped, and lifting the old man beneath one arm, bore him up the stairs regardless of his croaking protestations and fierce invective.

  “I said a piggy-back—oh, you blightin’ perisher, I said a piggy-back,” he snarled, his resplendent shoes twinkling in futile kicks. “Oh, Joe, there’s times when I fair ‘ates ye!”

  Thus, despite virulent curses and feeble kickings, Joe bore him on and up until, as he climbed the last flight, he was arrested by an exclamation from above, and glancing upward, beheld a tall, sharp-featured woman who leaned over the rail.

  “Oh, land o’ my fathers!” exclaimed Mrs. Trapes, “what’s the matter—what you got there? Who are ye?”

  “The matter, ma’am,” answered Joe, for by this time the Old Un had cursed himself quite breathless, “the matter’s contrariness; what I ‘ave under my arm, ma’am, is a old reprobate, and I’m Joe Madden, ma’am, come to take tea with my—come, as you might say, a visiting to Mr. Geoffrey; p’raps you’ll—”

  “Don’t ‘eed ‘im, ma’am—never ‘eed ‘im!” croaked the Old Un, who had regained his wind by now. “‘E ‘s a perishin’ pork pig, that’s wot ‘e is. Joe, you blighter, put me down. It’s me as the Guv expects—it’s me as ‘as come a-visitin’—Joe, put me down, you perisher. Joe’s only a hoaf, ma’am, a nass, ma’am. Joe ain’t used to perlite serciety, Joe don’t know nothin’—put me down, Joe, like a good lad!”

  At this juncture Ravenslee appeared, whereupon Joe, having reached the topmost landing, set the old man upon his natty feet and fell to straightening his smart clothes with hands big but gentle.

  “Sir,” explained Joe, answering Ravenslee’s smiling look, “Old Sin an’ Sorrer here wouldn’t walk up, which forced me to—”

  But now the Old Un, feeling himself again, cut in on his own account. “Ma’am,” said he, flourishing off his hat to Mrs. Trapes, “‘ere ‘s me an’ me lad Joe come to tea—my best respex an’ greetin’s, ma’am. How do, Guv? I do ‘ope as you ain’t forgot th’ cake.”

  “Oh, we’ve plenty of cake, Old Un!” laughed Ravenslee.

  “An’ water cress an’ jam!” nodded Mrs. Trapes.

  “Guv,” said the old man, gripping Ravenslee’s hand, “God bless ye for a true man an’ a noble sport. Ma’am, you’re a angel! Jam, ma’am—you’re a nymp’—you’re two nymp’s—

  “‘I oft would cast a rovin’ eye Ere these white ‘airs I grew, ma’am, To see a ‘andsome nymp’ go by, But none s’ fair as you, ma’am.’

  “An’ there’s me hand on it, ma’am.”

  “My land!” ejaculated Mrs. Trapes, staring; then all at once she laughed, a strange laugh that came and went again immediately, yet left her features a little less grim than usual, as, reaching out, she grasped the old man’s feeble hand.

  “I guess you’re only bein’ p’lite,” said she, “but jest for that you’re sure goin’ t’ eat as much cake an’ jam as your small insides can hold.” So saying, she led the way into her small and very neat domain and ushered them into the bright little parlour where the Spider sat already enthroned in that armchair whereon sunflowers rioted. Like the chair, the Spider was somewhat exotic as to socks and tie, and he seemed a trifle irked by stiff cuffs and collar as he sat staring at the green and yellow tablecloth and doing his best not to tread upon the pink hearthrug.

  “Joe,” said Ravenslee, “this is Spider Connolly, who knocked out Larry McKinnon at San Francisco last year in the sixty-ninth. Spider, I want you to shake hands with—”

  “Bo,” exclaimed the Spider, rising reverently and taking a step toward Joe’s massive figure, quite forgetful of the pink hearthrug now, “you don’t have t’ tell me nothin’. I guess I know th’ best all-round fightin’ man, the greatest champion as ever swung a mitt, when I see him! T’ shake his hand’ll sure be—”

  “Young feller, me lad,” cried the Old Un, reaching out nimbly and catching the Spider’s extended hand, “you got a sharp eye, a true eye—a eye as can discrimpinate, like—ah, like a flash o’ light. You’re right, me lad, I was the best fightin’ man, the greatest champeen as ever was—sixty odd years ago. Ho, yus, I were the best of ‘em all, an’ I ain’t t’ be sniffed at now. So shake me ‘and, me lad—an’ shake—hard!”

  The Spider’s grim jaw relaxed, and his eyes opened very wide as the Old Un continued to shake his hand up and down.

  “But, say,” said he faint
ly at last, “I don’t—”

  “No more don’t I,” nodded the Old Un, “what’s the old song say:

  “‘I don’t care if it rains or snows Or what the day may be Since ‘ere’s a truth I plainly knows Love, you’ll remember me.’”

  “But say,” began the bewildered Spider again. “Say, I reckon—”

  “So do I,” nodded the Old Un:

  “‘I reckon up my years o’ life An’ a good long life ‘ave I. Ye see, I never had a wife, P’raps that’s the reason why.’

  “So take it from me, young feller, me cove, don’t ‘ave nothin’ to do with givin’ or takin’ in marriage.”

  “Marriage?”

  “Marriage ain’t good for a fightin’ cove—it spiles him, it shakes ‘is nerve, it fair ruinates ‘im. When love flies in at the winder, champeenships fly up the chimbley—never t’ come back no more. So beware o’ wives, me lad.”

  “Wives!” repeated the Spider, lifting free hand to dazed brow, “I—I ain’t never—”

  “That’s right!” nodded the Old Un heartily, shaking the Spider’s unresisting hand again, “marriage ain’t love, an’ love ain’t marriage. Wot’s the old song say:

  “‘Oh, love is like a bloomin’ rose But marriage is a bloomin’ thorn. An ‘usband ‘s full o’ bloomin’ woes An’ ‘caves a bloomin’ sigh each morn—’”

  “Why, Old Un!” exclaimed Ravenslee, “that’s a very remarkable verse!”

  “My land!” ejaculated Mrs. Trapes, squaring her elbows in the doorway, “I suspects he’s a poet—an’ him sech a nice little old gentleman!”

  “A poet, ma’am!” exclaimed the Old Un indignantly, “not me, ma’am, not me—should scorn t’ be. I’m a ‘ighly respected old fightin’ man, I am, as never went on th’ cross:

  “‘A fightin’ man I, ma’am, An’ wish I may die, ma’am, If ever my backers I crossed; An’ what’s better still, ma’am, Though I forgot many a mill, ma’am, Not one of ‘em ever I lost.’”

  “My land!” exclaimed Mrs. Trapes again. “What a memory!”

  “Memory, ma’am!” growled Joe, “that ain’t memory; ‘e makes ‘em up as ‘e goes along—”

  “Joe,” said the Old Un, glaring, “if the lady weren’t here, an’ axin’ ‘er pardon—I’d punch you in the perishin’ eye-‘ole for that!”

  “All right, old vindictiveness,” sighed Joe, “an’ now, if you’ll let go of Spider Connolly’s fist, I’d like to say ‘ow do. Sit down an’ give some one else a chance to speak—sit down, you old bag o’ wind—”

  “Bag o’—” the old man dropped the Spider’s nerveless hand to turn to Mrs. Trapes with a gloomy brow. “You ‘eard that, ma’am—you ‘eard this perishin’ porker call me a bag o’—Joe, I blush for ye! Ma’am, pore Joe means well, but ‘e can’t ‘elp bein’ a perisher—but”—and here the Old Un raised and shook a feeble old fist—”I’ve a good mind t’ ketch ‘im one as would put ‘im t’ sleep for a fortnight—I’ve a good mind—”

  But Mrs. Trapes caught that tremulous fist and drawing the Old Un’s arm through her own, turned to the door.

  “You come along with me,” said she, “you shall help me t’ get the tea; you shall carry in th’ cake an’—”

  “Cake!” exclaimed the Old Un, “Oh, j’yful word, ma’am; you’re a—a lidy! An’ there’s jam, ain’t there?”

  “Strawberry!”

  “Straw—oh, music t’ me ears, ma’am—you’re a nymp’—lead me to it!” So saying, the Old Un followed Mrs. Trapes out into the kitchen, while the Spider stared after him open-mouthed.

  “Sufferin’ Pete!” he murmured, then, inhaling a long, deep breath, turned to grasp Joe’s mighty, outstretched hand. Then, drawing their chairs together, they sat down, and Ravenslee, by an adroit question or two, soon had them talking, the Spider quick and eager and chewing voraciously, Joe soft-voiced and deliberate but speaking with that calm air of finality that comes only of long and varied experience. So, while Ravenslee smoked and listened, they spoke of past battles, of fights and fighters old and new; they discoursed learnedly on ringcraft, they discussed the merits of the crouch as opposed to the stiff leg and straight left; they stood up to show tricks of foot and hand—cunning shifts and feints; they ducked and side-stepped and smote the empty air with whirling fists to the imminent peril of the owl that was a parrot, which moth-eaten relic seemed to watch them with his solitary glass eye. And ever the Spider’s respect and admiration for the mild-eyed, quiet-spoken champion waxed and grew.

  “Bo!” said he, dexterously catching the toppling bird, glass case and all, for the second time, and addressing Ravenslee with it clasped to his heart, “bo,” he repeated, his eyes shining, “I guess Joe Madden, the greatest battler of ‘em all, is—Joe Madden still. I’ve always wanted t’ meet with him, an’ say—I wouldn’t ha’ missed him for a farm.”

  “Is that so!” exclaimed Mrs. Trapes, entering the room at this moment with the tea-cloth, “well, now—you jest put ‘im down—you jest put that bird back again, Spider Connolly!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” quoth the Spider, all abashed humility.

  “What you doin’ with it, anyway?” she demanded, elbows jutted ominously; “it’s lost a eye, an’ a cat got it once an’ sp’iled it some, but I treasure it fer reasons o’ sentiment, an’ if you think you c’n steal it—”

  “Not ‘im, ma’am, not ‘im!” piped the Old Un from the doorway, “it ain’t the pore lad’s fault. It’s Joe, blame it all on to Joe—Joe’s got a bad ‘eart, ma’am, a black, base-‘earted perisher is Joe—so no jam for Joe, ma’am, an’ only one slice o’ cake.”

  Here Ravenslee hastened to explain, whereupon Mrs. Trapes’s grimness abated, and her bristling elbows subsided; and now, perceiving how the abashed Spider, meeting her eye, flushed, plucked at his cuffs, and shuffled his feet, she reached out to pat his broad and drooping shoulder.

  “Mister Connolly,” said she, “for harsh words spoke in haste I craves now your pardon, an’ I craves it—humble. Am I forgive?”

  The Spider, flushing redder than ever, rose to his feet, seized her hand, shook it, and muttered: “Sure!”

  When the table was laid, the Old Un proposed, and was duly seconded, thirded, and fourthed, that Mrs. Trapes be elected into the chair to pour out the tea, which she proceeded to do forthwith, while the Old Un, seated at her right hand, kept a wary eye roving between jam dish and angel cake. And by reason of the unwonted graciousness of Mrs. Trapes, of Ravenslee’s tact and easy assurance, and the Old Un’s impish hilarity, all diffidence and restraint were banished, and good fellowship reigned supreme, though the Spider was interrupted in the midst of a story by the Old Un suddenly exclaiming:

  “Keep your hand out o’ the jam, Joe!”

  And Joe was later rendered speechless, hard-breathing, and indignant, by the Old Un turning to Mrs. Trapes with the shrill warning:

  “Ma’am, Joe’s ‘ad two ‘elpin’s o’ cake an’ got ‘is ‘orrid eye on what remains!”

  Nevertheless, the meal was in all ways a success, and Ravenslee was reaching for his pipe when Mrs. Trapes, summoned to the front door by a feverish knocking, presently came back followed by Tony, whose bright eyes looked wider than usual as he saluted the company.

  “Hey, Geoff, me tell-a you piece-a da-noos!” he cried excitedly, “big-a piece-a da-noos. Da cops go-a pinch-a Bud-a M’Ginn’!”

  “Bud? Bud?” stammered the Spider. “Have they pinched Bud? Is this the straight goods, Tony?”

  “Sure—they gott-a heem this-a morn in Jersey City—’n’ say, he think-a eet a frame-up—he theenk-a Geoff set-a de cops for-a take heem.”

  “The hell he does!” exclaimed the Spider, starting to his feet.

  “So he send-a da word to Soapy,” continued Tony, his eyes rolling, “an’ now all-a da gang’s out layin’ for-a Geoff. So when Geoff go-a out on da street—bingo! Dey snuff hees light out—”

  “Not much they won’t!” said the Spider, buttoning up his coat and tu
rning to the door. “I’ll mighty soon fix this, I guess.”

  “Do you think you can, Spider?” enquired Ravenslee. “If you’re going to have any trouble, don’t bother about—”

  “Bo,” said the Spider, squaring his big jaw, “get onto this: here’s where I chip in with ye; from now on we’re in this game together, an’ I ain’t a guy as’ll lay down his hand till I’m called—an’ called good, see? You said it was goin’ t’ be a man’s work—by Jiminy Christmas, it looks like you’re right; anyway, I stand in with you, that’s sure—put it there, bo!”

  “But,” said Ravenslee, as their hands gripped, “I don’t want you to take any chances on my account, or run any—”

  “Fudge, bo, fudge! I ain’t takin’ no chances—”

  “Well, I’m coming along to see you don’t!” said Ravenslee, reaching for his hat.

  “Not on your life, bo; you’d queer th’ whole show. Y’ see, they’re a tough crowd an’ apt t’ act a bit hasty now an’ then; ‘sides, they might think you’re heeled, and they know I don’t never carry a gun—they all know me—”

  “Still, I’m coming, Spider—”

  “Y’ can’t, bo; Mrs. Trapes ain’t goin’ t’ let ye—look at her!”

  “You never spoke a truer word since you drawed the vital air, Spider Connolly!” nodded Mrs. Trapes, hands on hips and elbows at the “engage.” “If Mr. Geoffrey stirs out this day, he’s jest gotter trample over my mangled remains, that’s all!”

  Heeding the glitter in her eye and noting the inexorable jut of her elbows, Ravenslee sat down and went on filling his pipe.

  “Y’ see, bo, I know as it wasn’t you as give Bud away, an’ the boys’ll listen t’ my say-so—you bet they will. So here’s where I ooze away. S’ long, all!”

  The Old Un, having bolted the last handful of cake, got upon his legs and clutched the Spider’s coat in talon-like fingers.

  “‘Old ‘ard, young feller, me lad!” he cried. “If there’s any chance of a scrap comin’ off—wot about me? Gimme me ‘at, Joe, an’ get yourn; if I don’t knock some on ‘em stone cold—call me a perishin’ ass!”